Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-07-20
Foreign Finances

ii has long been the custom IN Europe
to rid;cule American ideas of national
finance, and to swear at our notions as
crude and unscientific. The San Fran
cisco Chronicle says we have been
called tyros and schooiboys, theorists
aud experimenters, blunderers and idiots
and all sorts of cslamities have been pre-
dicted for us; but all the while we have
been getting richer and more powerful,
establishing our credit on firmer basis
and reducing our debt in a manner un-
paralleled in the history of the world
But how is it abroad, in those countries
where the masters of financial science are
at the head of affairs? How do the re-
suits of their purely scientific methods
compare with our honest though blum der
ing attempts to carry on the government
on sound financial bssis2 Let US see
In 1886 Germany ran behind S12, 500, 900;
Austro- Hungary has standing deficien-
CIV of Sl6, 250O00; Russia is trying to
find balance on the wrong side of her
ledger of about $4,000. 900; France is
going behind about S20,000,0 900 each
year, and Great Britain manages to make
income and outge about balance only by
stopping payments on its national debt.
IT,. Hptfad hos n a,,rsI.,o Of t1fl
900 900 and upward every year, and that
with lighter taxation by far than any of
the European nations mentioned. There
must be some good points in our clumsy
financiering, even if it does not CORES
pond to the rules Illuminated in
the older countries The difference
between legis llting for rich
and prosperous nation and for one
where everything must be strained to
make both ends meet is exemplified by
the action of recent congress of the
United States, and the action and per-
plexitIes of the reichstag of Ger
many. Congress was trying in every
legitimate way to get rid Of the sur
plus and to prevent the treasury from
overlooking Germany is straining every
nerve to increase the revenue of the gov
eminent without making individual bur
dens too heavy TO be borne. We are
suffering from too much money, they
from too little. l. is just the same in
England and France. Every item of the
budget is scrutinized and examined,
turned this way and that, debated and
discussed, to see whether a little more
revenue cannot be squeezed out of this
or that without entirely destroying the
source of such revenue. Straw after
straw is piled upon the back of the pa
tient camel, while the leaders of the car
AVIAN stand anxiously by lest the proven
bal last straw shall be added and the
poor animal sink beneath his load.
We presume that governments are like
other kinds of business. 1t is a good
deal easier to conduct business where a
stock of goods is paid for, credit is ex
cellent and there is a comfortable ball.
ance in the bank than where the firm is
expecting the arrival of the sheriff. or fly
ing kites all the time, and stretching its
credit to the utmost. The business of the
former may not have the style or finish of
the latter, but it hardly lies in the mouth
of bankrupt storekeeper to tell his we'll
to-do neighbor that he knows nothing
about the principles of business, and that
his methods are crude AM unscientific
The test of the value of method is sues
cess, and when the European nations sue
coed in doing financially what we have
done and are doing. it will be time for
chem to tell us that we should take les
sons in finance from them.